thetinytoon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Wanna join the EcoStasi? There's an app for that. (mnn.com)

Submitted by Dreadneck on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @05:36AM

Dreadneck writes: Karl Burkart at the Mother Nature Network opines that "EcoSnoop starts a new class of vigilante green apps for the iPhone. Now you can report neighborhood polluters."

EcoSnoop claims on its website that "EcoSnoop is Not Big Brother" in BIG bold letters.

It seems to me that if you have to declare that you're not Big Brother that you probably are, at the least, a kissing-cousin of Emmanuel Goldstein's arch-nemesis. Speaking for myself, this app — and the mindset it represents — smacks of the public shaming inflicted in "The Scarlet Letter" combined with the East German Stasi's encouraging of the population to be snitches for the state, with just a pinch of the Spanish Inquisition's anti-heresy effort thrown in for good measure. What else are we going to be encouraged to snitch on our neighbors about?

What say you, Slashdotters?

Submission + - The Best Job In the World Takes a Wrong Turn (nytimes.com)

Submitted by snl2587 on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @03:59AM

snl2587 writes: You may remember the story of the man who was selected for "the best job in the world" as a blogging island caretaker in Australia for the tidy sum of 150,000 Australian dollars ($120,000). Now it seems that the stunt may have backfired as a tourism boost since the man has been stung by a potentially fatal jellyfish in his last days there. As he said, though, he "really should have been wearing a full stinger suit".

Submission + - Solar dye directs light to PV on sides of glass (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Eclipse-now on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @01:30AM

Eclipse-now writes: "MIT’s solar concentrator maximizes its mileage by using an efficient expanse of light-collecting glass to guide sunlight into a minute array of potent photovoltaics. The glass panels are coated with a dye that absorbs sunlight and channels it along the pane’s edges while altering its wavelength to reduce energy loss from light transportation. The result is a system that can collect light over a very large area, but requires a very small array of solar cells."

In other words, it's way cheap!

Submission + - German president refuses to sign censorship law

Submitted by thetinytoon on Saturday November 28, 2009 @06:28PM

thetinytoon writes: German federal president Horst Köhler has refused to sign the censorship treaty that passed parlament earlier this year, stating that he 'needs more information'. In germany, the federal president has the right to reject a law only by reasons of an unlawful realisation in the legislative process, but not for reasons of being unconstitutional (as long as it's not obviously against the constitution).

Political observers guess, that the political parties would like to get rid of the law without loosing face, but since it already passed the parlament, they can't simply abandon it. Politics — everyone knows what needs to be done, but no one wants to admit he was wrong in the first place.

Source (google translation): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html
Original story (german): http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html

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